Robert Frost is the no. 2 seed in the North—right behind Goethe’s no. 1 seed, ‘The Holy Longing,” the Romantic tour de force by the German titan. The famous Frost poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” is much beloved for its scenic beauty (yes, a few poems in just a few words manage that feat) with its clean, practical longing: “miles to go before I sleep.”

But look at this lesser-known poem, no. 15 “‘Follow Thy Fair Sun” by Thomas Campion, a 16th century poem which does battle against a 20th century one: a classic pre-Romantic versus post-Romantic battle, brought to you by Scarriet’s March Madness:

Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow, Though thou be black as night And she made all of light, Yet follow thy fair sun unhappy shadow.

Follow her whose light thy light depriveth, Though here thou liv’st disgraced, And she in heaven is placed, Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth.

Follow those pure beams whose beauty burneth,

That so have scorched thee,

As thou still black must be,

Till Her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth.

Follow her while yet her glory shineth, There comes a luckless night, That will dim all her light, And this the black unhappy shade divineth.

Follow still since so thy fates ordained, The Sun must have his shade, Till both at once do fade, The Sun still proved, the shadow still disdained.

The trope is extremely simple: light and shade (“The Sun must have his shade”) with metaphysical, moral, romantic and metaphorical aspects attending its arc. The whole thing is lovely to behold, even if every last nuance is not quite understood.

The advantage the Frost has is “Stopping by Woods” shows, where “Follow Thy Fair Sun” tells. All great art, they say, shows rather than tells. Yet the Campion tells with such charm!

In our second match-up today, the no. 3 seed “Lesbia, Let’s Live Only For Love” by the Roman poet Catullus contends with “Lines” by the decadent, 19th century French poet, Rimbaud. If Catullus is Romanticism’s passionate root, Rimbaud is perhaps its rotten fruit.

The translation of Catullus is a Scarriet original, published for the first time on Scarriet:

Lesbia, let’s live only for loveAnd not give a crapFor jealous, old lips that flap.The sun, when it goes downComes back around,But, you know, when we go down, that’s it.Give me a thousand kisses, one hundredKisses, a thousand, a hundred,Let’s not stop, even during our extra hundred,Thousands and thousands of kisses our debt,But let’s not tell that to anybody yet.This business will make us rich: kisses.

Old poems can get right to the point in a manner that today would feel too embarrassing. This is because invention demands ever more novelty, ever more variety and nuance, and the more contemporary must feed this requirement more, even if it means we never get straight to the point again.

The Rimbaud, written nearly two thousand years later, writhes in its nuances for the acute sensitivity of a jaded reader:

When the world is no more than a lone dark wood before our four astonished eyes—a beach for two faithful children–a musical house for our bright liking—I will find you.Even if only one old man remains, peaceful and beautiful, steeped in “unbelievable luxury”—I’ll be at your feet.Even if I create all of your memories—even if I know how to control you—I’ll suffocate you.

When we are strong—who retreats? When happy, who feels ridiculous? When cruel, what could be done with us?Dress up, dance, laugh. —I could never toss Love out the window.

My consumption, my beggar, my monstrous girl! You care so little about these miserable women, their schemes—my discomfort. Seize us with your unearthly voice! Your voice: the only antidote to this vile despair.

We can get lost in the Rimbaud, a truly ‘modern’ poem: it does not march in a simple structure from A to B. Rimbaud’s ‘art’ is looser, but that looseness allows so much to be added! Yet since poetry is a temporal art, even loose poems have a beginning (A) and an end (B). We have to think Rimbaud is concluding with “voice” for a reason—the “voice” that saves us, the “voice” that is “unearthly” does not care for “schemes;” it is the expression of something unplanned, indifferent and apart. Heated and loose, the Rimbaud finally seeks a cold expression.

The Catullus really has a similar attitude: honest, crass, and heated as it ultimately loses itself in the coldness of mathematics. Rimbaud and Catullus are as similar as two peas in a pod, separated by two thousand years.

SINCE THERE’S NO HELP, COME LET US KISS AND PART
Michael Drayton (1563-1631)

SINCE there’s no help, come let us kiss and part;Nay, I have done, you get no more of me, And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart That thus so cleanly I myself can free; Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of Love’s latest breath, When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies, When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And Innocence is closing up his eyes, Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, From death to life thou mightst him yet recover.

SONNET
Shakespeare (1564-1616)

When in the chronicle of wasted timeI see descriptions of the fairest wights,And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,I see their antique pen would have expressedEven such a beauty as you master now.So all their praises are but propheciesOf this our time, all you prefiguring;And, for they looked but with divining eyes,They had not skill enough your worth to sing:For we, which now behold these present days,Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

WAS THIS THE FACE
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships,And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies!Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,And all is dross that is not Helena.I will be Paris, and for love of thee,Instead of Troy, shall Wittenberg be sack’d;And I will combat with weak Menelaus,And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,And then return to Helen for a kiss.O, thou art fairer than the evening airClad in the beauty of a thousand stars;Brighter art thou than flaming JupiterWhen he appear’d to hapless Semele;More lovely than the monarch of the skyIn wanton Arethusa’s azur’d arms;And none but thou shalt be my paramour!

Follow her, while yet her glory shineth!There comes a luckless nightThat will dim all her light;And this the black unhappy shade divineth.

Follow still, since so thy fates ordained!The sun must have his shade,Till both at once do fade,The sun still proud, the shadow still disdained.

THE GOOD MORROW
John Donne (1573-1631)

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

DELIGHT IN DISORDER
Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

A SWEET disorder in the dress Kindles in clothes a wantonness : A lawn about the shoulders thrown Into a fine distraction :An erring lace which here and there Enthrals the crimson stomacher : A cuff neglectful, and thereby Ribbons to flow confusedly : A winning wave (deserving note) In the tempestuous petticoat :A careless shoe-string, in whose tieI see a wild civility :Do more bewitch me than when art Is too precise in every part.

“A guest,” I answer’d, “worthy to be here”; Love said, “You shall be he.”“I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear, I cannot look on thee.”Love took my hand and smiling did reply, “Who made the eyes but I?”

“Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them; let my shame Go where it doth deserve.”“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?” “My dear, then I will serve.”“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.” So I did sit and eat.

SONG FOR ST. CECILIA’S DAY
John Dryden (1631-1700)

From harmony, from heavenly harmonyThis universal frame began:When Nature underneath a heapOf jarring atoms lay,And could not heave her head,The tuneful voice was heard from high,“Arise, ye more than dead!”Then cold and hot, and moist and dry,In order to their stations leap,And Music’s power obey.From harmony, from heavenly harmonyThis universal frame began:From harmony to harmonyThrough all the compass of the notes it ran,The diapason closing full in Man.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?When Jubal struck the chorded shellHis listening brethren stood around,And, wondering, on their faces fellTo worship that celestial sound.Less than a god they thought there could not dwellWithin the hollow of that shellThat spoke so sweetly and so well.What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

Orpheus could lead the savage race,And trees uprooted left their placeSequacious of the lyre:But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher:When to her Organ vocal breath was givenAn Angel heard, and straight appeared –Mistaking Earth for Heaven.

As from the power of sacred laysThe spheres began to move,And sung the great creator’s praiseTo all the blessed above;So when the last and dreadful hourThis crumbling pageant shall devour,The trumpet shall be heard on high,The dead shall live, the living die,And music shall untune the sky.

THE GARDEN
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

How vainly men themselves amazeTo win the palm, the oak, or bays,And their uncessant labours seeCrown’d from some single herb or tree,Whose short and narrow-verged shadeDoes prudently their toils upbraid;While all the flowers and trees do closeTo weave the garlands of repose!

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,And Innocence thy sister dear?Mistaken long, I sought you thenIn busy companies of men:Your sacred plants, if here below,Only among the plants will grow:Society is all but rudeTo this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seenSo amorous as this lovely green.Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,Cut in these trees their mistress’ name:Little, alas! they know or heedHow far these beauties hers exceed!Fair trees! wheres’e’er your barks I wound,No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passions’ heat,Love hither makes his best retreat:The gods, that mortal beauty chase,Still in a tree did end their race;Apollo hunted Daphne soOnly that she might laurel grow;And Pan did after Syrinx speedNot as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wondrous life in this I lead!Ripe apples drop about my head;The luscious clusters of the vineUpon my mouth do crush their wine;The nectarine and curious peachInto my hands themselves do reach;Stumbling on melons, as I pass,Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind from pleasure lessWithdraws into its happiness;The mind, that ocean where each kindDoes straight its own resemblance find;Yet it creates, transcending these,Far other worlds, and other seas;Annihilating all that ‘s madeTo a green thought in a green shade.